Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

donghyuck wakes up to heavy rain.

funny, he could have sworn the weather forecast said it was going to be sunny all week. he was supposed to go out with his friends today but the sky is dark and gloomy with no sign of the clouds clearing, and he has this splitting headache. searing, hot pain at the back of his skull. he’s never experienced anything like it before in his fifteen years on earth.

“you alright?” comes johnny’s voice. wait, why is he in his and mark’s room? what time is it?

he’s going to be in big trouble if he’s late for early morning practice. he’s been coming in earlier and staying up until later as the plans for their debut are finalized and the months before he finally sheds his trainee titles are numbered. this is the worst time to slack off.

donghyuck faces away from the foggy window to look at johnny. he’s occupying the second bed in the room, his face lit by the dim screen of his phone. 

“hyung, did you get a haircut?” his voice falters as he winces from the pain. that’s not his and mark’s room, and it's certainly not a hotel room either. donghyuck has slept in odd places before and woke up not knowing how he got there: in practice rooms and makeup chairs and the back of his classroom. an entirely new place though?

his eyes flicker towards every corner of the room, desperately trying to find a familiar object to cling onto, but there are none. the sleepy haze clouding his mind is clearing and he still can’t tell.

“in the five hours between the time i said goodnight to you and right now? not to my knowledge.” johnny replies easily, threading his fingers through his short, dark brown curls. “why, does it look weird?”

“it looks different,” donghyuck insists. “i think i might have slept for too long, like i don’t know where the hell i am anymore.”

johnny whistles. “that’s the worst feeling.”

he waits for johnny to elaborate, but he doesn’t.

“it would be so funny if i actually forgot and you had to tell me.”

“totally, good thing you can recognize the room you sleep in every day though,” johnny says. “go back to sleep if you’re really tired. we don’t have any schedules today.”

donghyuck blinks. why would he need to point that out when they have a ‘schedule’ once every two weeks.  “what about practice?”

“for what? donghyuck, i think you should try going back to sleep and then start this conversation over in a few hours.”

“i’m good,” donghyuck replies even though the splitting headache is only getting worse. he stumbles out of bed and then stands in front of the door for a full minute.

the throbbing pain through his muscles is in all the wrong places, just like they do when their dance instructors introduce a new routine that his body is not familiar with. that feeling times one thousand.

“the bathroom is the second door on the left. you know, just in case you really forgot,” johnny quips sarcastically.

“shut up hyung,” donghyuck bites back even though he’s thanking all his lucky stars he actually answered.

the living room is unfamiliar but feels like home all at once, and the clash of emotions hits donghyuck so hard he winces again and stumbles back. yuta looks up from his breakfast to shoot him a worried look.

yuta is different too. his hair is down to his shoulders and it’s a shade of blond he’s never seen on him before. his face has matured, almost as if he’s just aged five years.

“did you sleep in your gaming chair again?” he asks, half teasing and half actual concern. 

“what do you mean agai–” donghyuck begins to ask, and then realizes that much like his conversation with johnny earlier, this probably won’t go anywhere. “i woke up in my own bed, i guess.”

yuta snorts. “you guess? you’re not sure about where you woke up?”

donghyuck rolls his eyes. “so you’re going to be insufferable about it too.”

“what does that mean?” yuta yells as he shuts the bathroom door behind him. “hey donghyuck! what the hell does that mean?”

woah. he’s a lot taller, the tip of his head close to the mirror’s edge. it’s his face but it also isn't. the constellation of moles and round face and downturned brown eyes are the same, but he’s hollower, longer, and there is a little red spot on his neck, right over his collarbones. it’s almost as if–

almost– almost– almost–

he runs out of the bathroom and back to his room. yuta is still screaming for an explanation.

donghyuck ignores the sarcastic remark that was already halfway through johnny’s mouth to ask a possibly incredibly stupid question.

“what’s today’s date?”

“it’s the 13th of july– oh, actually the 14th.” 

“of what year?”

johnny narrows his eyes at him. “uh, the year of the rat? well, teacher sooman called it the year of global domination at the company christmas party but i honestly think he’s full of shi–”

“of what fucking year!”

“it’s 2020, and watch your tone, jeez.”

donghyuck’s mind goes completely blank, the pain is gone and is replaced by overwhelming nothingness that render him thoughtless and speechless. it’s an incomprehensible situation that he was never equipped to deal with mentally.

what.

“you’re fucking with me,” he tries.

“you’re a little more, what’s the word,” johnny scrunches his nose. “aggressive? a little feral?”

he says it like it’s the strangest thing in the world, as if donghyuck doesn’t torment him and the rest of the trainees on a regular basis, as if he didn’t coerce jeno and jisung into stealing all the hyungs’ shoes and hiding them in johnny’s locker room just last week. what does he mean donghyuck is a little feral. 

the future is fucking weird.

“and that’s weird. to you.” 

“last night you were trying to give me haechanie’s super special powerful love attack , so yeah, i am a little disoriented right now.”

donghyuck shudders. he hates to admit it, but that sure sounds like him. “haechan?”

johnny points at him. “haechan.”

“interesting….”

“yeah, you truly are the most interesting person in the world. are you going to keep standing here with the door wide open? i would like to have some privacy, please.”

“whatever, i’m starving.” he slams the door behind him.

so the future, huh. okay. 

he walks over to yuta and whispers. “hey, is johnny hyung playing a prank on me?”

“what sorta prank?” yuta asks, mouth still full of food. “if it’s johnny it’s probably something really lame.”

although he can’t for the life of him think of a way for johnny to pull off such a massive joke, it’s still a more plausible alternative than him traveling in fucking time. also, it’s lame as hell. “like what if he pretended that i woke up in the future and now it’s uh, say, 2020?”

yuta tilts his head. “but it is 2020.”

his heart sinks. “right. just ignore i said anything! haha!”

yuta nods, smiling. “you’re a really funny kid, donghyuck.”

he’s heard that a lot growing up, and he can’t help but feel somewhat comforted by the word kid. “you always say that.”

“do i?” he wonders, pulling on the ends of his long strands. he really looks like a different person, and it’s blowing donghyuck’s mind. this is real. “well it’s true!”

he sits down across from him, hands shaking as he reaches for the utensils. yuta fills his plate with food without him even asking, stacking it up with all of donghyuck’s favorites. he must be used to doing this every morning. 

there are a million things racing through his mind now but his deepest natural instincts tell him that he must eat . his stomach growls loudly in agreement. 

the door across the kitchen creaks open, and donghyuck only slightly turns around to see a blurry red figure scurry to take a seat next to him. the smile on yuta’s face grows wider, more obnoxious, and it makes him want to punch his new face.

it’s mark.

donghyuck’s breath hitches in his throat. his best friend is unrecognizable. just a tiny bit taller than he is, his hair is chopped short up to his ears, his cheekbones sculpted by the gods. holy shit, mark dumbass lee grows up to be hot? is this some form of twisted karma? 

he still wears his dorky glasses though, and they make donghyuck feel at ease. he tries to resist the urge to push them far up his long nose bridge like he does whenever mark annoys him. maybe they don’t do that anymore.

mark seems to hesitate, hanging his hands in the air before curling them down into donghyuck’s free one and giving it a gentle squeeze. redness blooms in his cheeks. 

sirens blare in donghyuck’s brain, but his body melts into warm goo. 

“do you guys give your clothes a run through the laundry before you share them?” yuta scrunches his nose. donghyuck takes a couple of whiffs, but picks up nothing. “i’ve always wondered.”

“what the fuck are you on about, hyung?” donghyuck asks.

yuta points a chopstick at mark’s red shirt accusingly. “that’s yours, and now mark is wearing it. i’m about eighty five percent sure i saw you in it yesterday morning. now, kids, i’m all for you doing….whatever the fuck it is you do together. i support that like love is love et cetera, but negligence of personal hygiene is where i have to draw the line.”

“is it?” mark asks, his first words of the day. voice low in his throat like he has a cold. he puts fingers to his lips, and clears his throat. “i guess i keep getting confused. i just picked them up from the floor.”

donghyuck has a more pressing question. “why would my clothes end up on mark’s floor?”

“gross, donghyuck, don’t make me say it out loud,” yuta replies, actually sounding flustered. 

he narrows his eyes at him, and then looks at mark (he really does look so fucking good), who avoids his eyes, although his grip around his hand only tightens.

and that’s when it all clicks.

oh no.

if donghyuck stares straight ahead, he can pretend this isn’t happening.

straight ahead in this case being the ceiling of their dorm living room. he could trick himself into thinking this lightbulb is a particularly interesting shape if he squinted at it long enough. anything to distract himself from the fact that his head is in mark’s lap, who is distractedly threading his long fingers through his curls while watching tv. 

it sounds romantic but it’s anything but. mark pushed his head down while they were sitting next to each other without warning.

it’s still raining, and the room is dark and quiet. yuta mentioned something about taeyong’s plants and disappeared, and johnny is probably asleep again. 

what the fuck happened in the past five years that he, lee donghyuck, the handsomest and most charming trainee, has chosen to date mark of all people? is it purely because he’s hot now? he’d hoped he would be less shallow at age twenty, because there is no way he’s actually into mark’s dorky personality. all he does is laugh too loud at his jokes, practice until his scrawny body gives in, and ask donghyuck if he stole his glasses. they’re good at best friends but anything more than that is incomprehensible.

mark seems exactly the same too, that terror in his eyes whenever he looks at donghyuck hasn’t changed. damn, they must be in a very strange relationship. 

donghyuck also can’t figure out the password to his phone, and it’s driving him insane because he knows for a fact that all the answers to his questions are hidden inside it. instead he just has to stare at the failed attempt message and a picture of a baby cheetah he set as his lock screen. also, he’s using an android phone for some unfathomable reason. it’s the same model mark is using. could it be….no. nope. there is no way he’s that much of a loser. he must have some semblance of dignity left. 

mark is not speaking to him, fingers firmly in his hair and eyes glued to the tv. it would be so much easier if he did. donghyuck has no idea how to talk to this mark, and so for the first time in his life he is too afraid to speak.

“mar–”

“iiiiis anyone up for coffee?” johnny suddenly emerges from their room, and donghyuck jolts up, and then remembers that everyone knows and nobody cares . “oh, it’s just you two. i’m not intruding again am i?”

donghyuck’s eyes are shaking. “again?”

“gross, donghyuck. can we not get into the details?” johnny turns up his nose. “it just stopped raining, so taeil hyung and i are going to get coffee and maybe walk around for a bit.”

donghyuck looks at mark for guidance, but he’s looking back at him cluelessly. their eyes meet and they do that telepathy thing they mastered by their second year of living together where they decide to say the same thing at the same time from a single look. 

“of course!”

johnny smiles, and his eyes linger on the two of them. “it’s good to have you both here, it’s been so long.”

donghyuck doesn’t ask what he means by that, he thinks the answer would be too painful.

the city is so much prettier when it’s damp.

it’s shiny and dark at the same time, and there is a quiet lull in the street coupled with the fresh scent of rain that eases donghyuck’s heart. it’s all that, and taeil being the first person who looks exactly the same way he did five years ago. a familiarity he can cling to.

mark tries to put his hands around his shoulders first, and then grabs his hand when that proves to be inefficient and awkward. donghyuck can hear johnny and taeil giggling behind them, and turns red but doesn’t resist. 

as they take a turn and step out into the main street, people’s head begin to turn. a girl’s eyes widen and squeals when she recognizes them, her friend next to her is scrambling to take a video with her phone.

“hyung, what is going on?” donghyuck whispers to taeil.

“do you have a fever or something?” taeil feels his forehead. he turns to johnny. “is he okay?”

“hasn’t been since this morning,” johnny shrugs. “i thought the fresh air would knock senes into him, but it doesn’t seem to work.”

“you said you missed me and shit,” he replies defensively, and taeil snorts. 

“he sulks in my room whenever you’re over at dream, you know,” taeil says, winking, as if he has any idea what that is supposed to mean. when donghyuck is sleeping? 

“and me, i also miss you,” mark says, and clears his throat again. donghyuck can’t get used to that voice. 

how many hours a day does donghyuck fucking sleep? “i, uhm, miss you too?”

mark blushes and looks away as he interlaces their fingers. donghyuck feels a tiny squeeze in his chest.

johnny ends up leading them to the same place he used to get his coffee all these years ago, and the staff prepare their drinks without asking for their orders. everyone in the cafe stares, but they keep to themselves in a corner and pretend they don’t notice, like it’s a regular occurance.

so it’s 2020, and they finally made it.

later, mark stares at the three drinks and four straws on their table intently. he then grabs one straw and scoots closer to donghyuck.

“mark lee! sorry for the delay, but your vanilla latte is ready,” the barista yells from across the room, and all eyes fall on his hand, frozen halfway before his straw dipped into donghyuck’s iced coffee. he chuckles to himself awkwardly and hurries to take it off the counter. seriously, did every possible person donghyuck could date perish from this planet, leaving him with no other choice?

“how are the kids doing?” johnny asks, and donghyuck’s blood runs cold. he’s a father now too? “doyoung keeps complaining that jeno doesn’t reply to his texts fast enough, and there’s no use telling him you guys have been busy these past few months.”

oh. phew.

“they’re great, and by great i mean they’ve tried to murder each other at least three times this past week.” he doesn’t know if that’s true but it has applied to every week of his life since he joined sm. he’s dying to ask why they’re not living together, but then remembers what johnny said before they left. maybe it’s a subject best left untouched.

“just the usual then?” 

“exactly.”

mark is restless from where he’s sitting next to him. he grabs his hand again and lets it go, tries his shoulders again, puts an arm around them first and then watering it down to a hand casually leaning on, then he finally loops their arms together, making it harder for them to move or have a conversation but refuses to let go. the only reason donghyuck doesn’t resist is because he can’t break character.

 that’s all.

ıllıllııllıllııllıllı

for the first time in a very, very, long time, mark wakes up in a room all by himself. 

he loves the sound of rain, and although it makes no sense for it to rain at this time of the year, he hums happily to himself and sinks deep into the covers. rain means that he doesn’t have to go out with donghyuck and their loud friends this afternoon.

but his short seconds of bliss are just that, and his phone buzzes with a song he’s never heard in his life, scaring the living shit out of him. he rolls back and hits the wall hard against back. his phone lands on the floor.

mark knows it’s his because even though he’s never seen this model before, it’s still a worn out galaxy covered in a case that’s falling apart but he can’t get himself to throw out because of sentimental value. 

he rubs his back and crawls down to pick it up, but before he could turn off his awful alarm (what the fuck is this song?), his lock screen background almost sends him into cardiac shock.

two intertwined hands, one is unmistakably his while the other, and he hates himself more than anything for instantly recognizing it, even more because he can count every mole on his hand, point it out in a lineup of hundreds, is donghyuck’s.

the phone falls out between his fingers like it just burned his skin. his unfamiliar, but deeply familiar surroundings are much more glaring now that he’s looking away and anywhere except for that cursed thing he was just holding.

that’s his guitar propped on the corner, there’s a bright red vancouver shirt that he never bought but most definitely doesn’t belong to anyone but him, and most damning of them all are the glasses on the bedside table.

he puts them on. his vision turns sharp and crisp.

if this is a dream, he really hates it because it’s not a funny one he can tell the other trainees about without getting teased to the moon and back. no, this is absolutely embarrassing and humiliating and he won’t speak about it to another soul.

mark bites his lips and climbs back into bed. it’s alright, if he drifts off to sleep in this dream he’ll wake up in real life again. 

an unspecified amount of hours later, he’s still in his not-room.

okay. the universe wants to be funny and drop him here for longer than expected. he’ll go along with it until he finally wakes up. he stretches his arm over his head, and his bones crackle the same way they always do so at least he knows he’s still him. 

he takes a closer look at his room, feeling like an astronaut who just landed on a foreign planet. there is a humble shelf filled with memorabilia across the bed. most of them are albums. that’s weird, they’re their albums, with the group name their management decided on a few months ago.

neo culture technology.

are they prototypes for their debut album? but they all have different lineups on the cover. some don’t even have mark in them. also, what the fuck is wayv ? there’s him with frizzy blond hair that makes him wonder how he ever agreed to have it done to his scalp, there’s his face in black and white, and then him in all white with his friends and two boys he’s never seen before.

and then there are things that must hold some sort of sentimental value but make no sense to him: a school badge with the name lee donghyuck, a paper hat from in-n-out, a gucci bracelet, a stack of tarot cards, and two patches with the numbers 66 and 02 on them.

back to the phone. he picks it up in disgust, with the tips of his fingers barely touching it. it unlocks easily into a kakaotalk conversation. to his horror, it’s between him and donghyuck. and they’re not calling each other names that would get them scolded in front of the entire practice room.

MARK: night.

DONGHYUCK: good night, love you.

i love you ? is one of them dying from a terminal illness? sure, on a good day, the two of them might admit that they don’t wish the most painful death on each other, and that, god forbid, they enjoy each other’s company, but they’re fifteen and it’s a perfectly normal method for them to process their emotions. mark thinks it’s a lot more progressive than doyoung and jaehyun not speaking to each other one minute and then sneaking out to make out the very next. 

he purses his lips and scrolls up, desperately searching for context. it gets worse.

DONGHYUCK: you should make it up to me. it’s been almost two full weeks without you and i’ve had to make do by myself.

MARK: you could just text me.

DONGHYUCK: time difference, dork. 

there is a two minute interval between this message and the next.

MARK: anything you want.

DONGHYUCK: dinner at our favorite place first night you land.

MARK: and after?

DONGHYUCK: lol you can’t keep it in your pants for one minute. and after–

what follows is a series of texts containing incredibly vivid descriptions of things that mark has never, ever, experienced outside the realm of his fantasies.

mark drops the phone again, his face on fire and his heart attempting to rip through his chest. 

he and donghyuck want to– he and donghyuck have already– he and donghyuck seem to regularly–

the lee donghyuck name tag and the two little sixes and that scent in his bed that he knew but couldn’t exactly place. the clouds over his thoughts clear to reveal a horrifying new reality, as a higher deity in the sky looks down on him and cackles madly. 

that damn phone, it’s vibrating again. this time with messages from yuta.

YUTA: are you up? auntie made a big breakfast but no one’s eating:(

YUTA: oh wait, your boyfriend’s here. he’s muttering a lot of gibberish. i think you should come get him.

mark begins to type my boyfriend? when yuta continues his train of thoughts and stomps on any seed of doubt.

YUTA: did you and donghyuck go drinking last night? wait, he would have spent the night in your room if you did. anyway, please take him off my hands. he’s screaming at johnny right now. 

YUTA: and don’t you dare pretend you’re not reading my messages. i caught you typing for a split second.

mark is cornered.

he pushes against the edge of his bed and hugs his knees together. this isn’t right. he should be getting ready for practice and showing donghyuck his new songs he’s been learning to play and then the two of them have the entire afternoon off so they were going out for lunch with jisung, jeno, and jaemin and either a movie or playing at the park after. 

their favorite place is the mcdonalds across from the practice building, but that’s not what this donghyuck means. it was like he was reading a conversation between two strangers.

another message from yuta.

don’t go back to sleep!

he puts on the red shirt and stumbles out of the room.

a man who vaguely looks like yuta waves at him like an excited dog. he flashes his teeth, which confirms his identity to mark.

across from him is donghyuck stuffing his face, and mark could swear he could see all the obscene words he’s texted him swirling around him menacingly. as his heart is pounding against his chest, he sits next to him and tries to play it cool, but once he gets a close-up look his breath is stolen from his lungs.

no one would believe him if he said it back in the real world, but he’s always found donghyuck pretty. ever since they first met, mark thought his soft brown curls made him look like a cherub. and although that perception shatters whenever he opens his mouth and reveals what a demon he truly is, mark just can’t help admiring his round eyes and warm smile.

this donghyuck is beautiful too, but just in all the wrong ways. okay, maybe not wrong , but different. it’s not his donghyuck. he’s taller and sharper around the edges. not an upgraded version because his donghyuck (god, he needs to stop calling him that) is adorable and perfect just the way he is.

it doesn’t stop him from being shocked speechless, though.

he suddenly remembers that in this universe he and donghyuck are apparently d–d– guh, he can’t get himself to say it! but he needs to play it cool because everyone else seems to be acting normal and on the off chance this isn’t an incredibly vivid nightmare, he can’t risk them thinking he’s a lunatic.

should he kiss him? is that what they do every morning? they talk about kissing in their texts, along with all the other things mark will never be able to erase from his head for the rest of eternity. he steals a glance at yuta, who is smirking at them expectantly. no, maybe they don’t do that in front of people. actually, he really hopes that they don’t because it’s just so embarrassing.

mark looks down at donghyuck’s hand, the one he saw on his phone, and slips his hand into it as casually as he could. 

he braces for his reaction, terrified that he’d get yelled at and teased for his sudden and unconventional show of affection, but donghyuck continues eating as if nothing happened. 

yuta and donghyuck bicker about his shirt and he can barely pay attention when all he could think about is how warm and snug donghyuck’s hand is against his. not so pleasant that he’d make it his fucking lockscreen but he doesn’t hate it. not as much as he thinks he should.

“ugh, i don’t even wanna picture you guys– much less say it,” yuta makes a barfing motion with his mouth. “i can barely accept that you’re both twenty already, the older you two are the closer i am to death.”

twenty. twenty. twenty.  

and that’s when it all clicks.

oh no.